Category Archives: Fantasy

Review: State of Grace by Hilary Badger

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

State of Grace by Hilary BadgerState of Grace
Hilary Badger
Capstone/Switch Press
Published October 1, 2014

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Wren and her companions live in a beautiful utopian world where pleasure is the highest value. Dot has made all creation good and beautiful, and she’s left instructions for how to live. When strange flashes of another life begin plaguing Wren, she tries to hold on to Dot’s ways and be happy. But as piece after piece of her perfect world begin to crumble, Wren finds it harder and harder to believe.

At first glance, this is definitely a different book. The idea of reading a utopian story really appealed to me, and I think Badger really delivered on that idea. Of course we’re suspicious of the perfect world right from the start, but even that works for the story. In some ways the suspicion which is so well-voiced by Blaze is really what propels the story forward.

The most powerful moment comes when Wren is faced with the knowledge that what she’s believed to be true is based on lies. She must decide if she’s strong enough to pursue the truth or if she can allow herself to be lulled back into ignorance. Can she be happy if she knows it’s all fake? Badger captures the unraveling of the pure dystopian world, juxtaposing Wren’s breakdown against the echoes of bliss still experienced by other characters, revealing the truth in an almost horrifying clarity worthy of big league sci-fi writers.

Readers who enjoy Ursula K. LeGuin (particularly The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas) should absolutely give State of Grace a read.

Language Content
No profanity.

Sexual Content
Characters are encouraged to have sex (referred to as hooking up) as often as they want with whomever they want, as long as it’s not with the same person twice (some couples choose same sex, others choose opposite sex. Anything goes.) In the Books of Dot, pleasure and fun are the highest values.

A boy uses Dot’s principles to manipulate girls into having sex with him. There aren’t a lot of details given. Wren recognizes that there’s something wrong with this, but isn’t immediately able to pinpoint what.

Other hooking up scenes aren’t described either. Wren does refer to the boys’ “willies” and the girls’ “tatas” here and there. Clothing is also optional.

There’s a brief reference to a porn site and a nudist colony.

Spiritual Content
Characters worship Dot as their creator. She is an all-knowing goddess who left instructions within several books. One character claims to hear Dot’s voice. Each character is required to fill a bag with a special fruit as an offering to Dot each day. (See below for more information that includes a spoiler.)

Violence
A boy slits the neck of a deer and guts it. It’s a bit gruesome, which is kind of the point the author is making. A boy’s neck is cut later. There are some flashbacks which include information about a boy beating someone to death.

Drug Content
A boy encourages a girl to take prescription drugs and smoke cigarettes with him.

Spoiler
(Spiritual Content continued) Wren learns that everything she believed about Dot has been made up. She’s frustrated and angry, but also a bit relieved, because it was getting a little Lord of the Flies there for a while. At the end of the book she reflects on the difference between her earlier life and the present. She knows that anyone who has died isn’t out there with Dot. They simply don’t exist anymore. She has zero faith, and that’s implied to be this very superior experience.

Given her earlier time, it’s understandable that faith has left her with this strong aversion and that she’s chosen not to believe anything like that anymore, but some readers may be bothered by the implication that atheism is a superior way to live.

 

Save

Save

Review: Mercy’s Prince by Katy Huth Jones

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , ,

Mercy’s Prince by Katy Huth Jones
Quinlan Creek Press

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Prince Valerian longs to become a scholar, a dream spurned by his family in his war-torn kingdom. When the crowned prince is cut down in battle, Valerian must step forward to lead his father’s army to war. To wear the crown he never wanted, he will have to prove his worth to a people who value power over philosophy.

Mercy, a healer from a peaceful village, loses everything dear to her in one terrible morning. She joins the prince and his companion to rally the people and defeat the Horde that would destroy them all. The prince will need every ally if he is to stop the lizard-like beasts who seek to annihilate his people.

Right from the beginning I wanted to root for Valerian. There were a couple of quickly passing moments where I hesitated a little bit, but he’s definitely the classic form of one of my favorite heroes – a good guy in a tough place who has to make some really hard choices. I felt much the same way about Mercy.

So often right now YA features stories in which the protagonists whine about how terrible things are and how they just want to do things their own way. These guys are not like that at all. Mercy’s Prince definitely has that more classic feel, where the characters get handed tasks they never wanted and they man up and work to make the best of things. I found that attitude really admirable, and while I enjoy a good rebel, too, this story felt fresh and lovely. My only complaint with regard to characters is that Mercy’s little brother was kind of flat for me. At the beginning he was kind of a trouble-maker and then suddenly, he turned into this constantly helpful cooperative four year-old. I kind of wanted to see more conflict there, more sides of his behavior. He’s not a huge part of the story, though, so that didn’t really detract from my enjoyment much at all.

Though the narrative isn’t perhaps as polished as stories coming from mammoth publishing houses, love for the characters and an intriguing plot kept me turning page after page each time I sat down to read. Mercy’s Prince is easily one of the best indie novels I’ve ever read. I highly recommend it to readers who enjoy Mary Weber’s Storm Siren Trilogy or Jill Williamson’s Blood of Kings series.

Language Content
No profanity.

Sexual Content
Brief references to a couple looking forward to their wedding night, as in looking forward to being “one flesh.” It’s pretty tactful.

Spiritual Content
All the members of Mercy’s village have taken an oath of pacifism in response to their faith in the Most High God. Some characters possess Gifts – to See into the thoughts of others, to supernaturally Heal others, etc. (The capital letters are used in the story to indicate the use of the supernatural gift.)

Dragons exist and can speak to humans and one another mind to mind.

Violence
Prince Valerian witnesses his brother’s death. He’s cut down by a lizard-like enemy. Several battle scenes depict warfare between men and the lizard-like Horde. A group of soldiers massacre an entire village of civilians. Assassins attempt to kill the prince and his companions. These events are described with some level of detail. The story doesn’t dwell too long on the gory stuff, but there are some descriptions that really sensitive readers might be uncomfortable with.

Drug Content
References to a festival at which men become drunk and rowdy. The major characters see this as a dangerous behavior and withdraw from the event.

Review: The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Middle Grade 8-12, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

The School for Good and Evil (School for Good and Evil #1)
Soman Chainani
HarperCollins
Published on May 4, 2013

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

Each year the schoolmaster collects two children from Sophie’s village. She longs to be chosen to attend the School for Good and grow up to be a fairy tale princess. Her best friend Agatha, hopes only to be left alone. When the schoolmaster comes to collect the children, Sophie is chosen, and all her dreams are about to come true.

Except the schoomaster’s servants deposit her in the School of Evil and send Agatha to the School of Good. Clearly there’s been a mistake, one Sophie will do anything to correct. Agatha agrees that something has gone horribly wrong. She is determined to find a way to escape the school with Sophie and return home to her village. But what if there is no escape? What if the schoolmaster hasn’t made a mistake, and in fact, Sophie and Agatha belong exactly where he’s sent them?

My Review

When I saw THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL sitting on the shelf in our local bookstore, my daughter and I were in the middle of the Ever After High series by Shannon Hale. While we both loved the upbeat story and its modern fairy tale feel, I liked that this series looked similar but perhaps more complex.

The story is a bit meatier than the Ever After High series, but it’s also a bit cruder. Agatha, surrounded by curious princes and princesses in the School for Good, passes gas at them to buy her time to escape. Later, she disguises herself as a roach. One of the students in the School for Evil turns rat poop into chocolate.

Over all, the message is a familiar important one. Sophie’s outward beauty isn’t what makes her good. Her shallowness and disdain for others much more heavily define her. Agatha doesn’t see herself as lovely, but her compassion and kindness mark her as a true princess.

I’m not sure that readers of Ever After High would necessarily gravitate toward THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL because the tone is so different, but definitely readers who enjoyed THE THICKETY: A PATH BEGINS by J. A. White should definitely give this one a go.

Content Notes

Profanity or Crude Language
No profanity. Brief crude references to bodily functions.

Sexual Content
In the tradition of modern fairy tales, it’s not the prince and true love’s kiss that break an evil spell. Instead, a kiss between Agatha and Sophie seals the pivotal moment. It’s less romantic and more symbolic.

Spiritual Content
Children who attend the School for Evil will grow up to be villains (including witches) in fairy tale stories. Students learn to use magic spells to bring help or harm to others.

Violence
Mild battle situations. No gore.

Drug Content
None.

Review: A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Middle Grade 8-12, , , ,

A Corner of White (The Colours of Madeleine #1)
Jaclyn Moriarty
Arthur A Levine Books/Scholastic, Inc.
Published April 1, 2013

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About A Corner of White

In real-world London, Madeleine and her mother are runaways. Together they escaped from a previous life in which they were rich and lived all over the world. At first Madeleine thought their leaving was a lark. The truth is something she may never be ready to accept.

Elliot, resident of the land of Cello, prepares for his next trip away. He’s been searching for his father, who went missing the night his uncle died. Rumors say a purple murdered his uncle and dragged his father and a local woman to its cave as prisoners. If Elliot can catch the right spell, he can find them and bring them home.

When a letter from Cello asking for help turns up in a parking meter in London, Madeleine answers it, believing it’s probably a prank of some kind. As she corresponds with Elliot, who receives her letters in Cello, she begins to wonder if what he says could be real. Could there really be another world, one connected only by a crack the size of a folded note?

As problems swell around both Madeleine and Elliot, they look to each other for confidence as they struggle to sort things out. Madeleine takes refuge in knowledge. Elliot must guard the “Butterfly Child,” a tiny girl who may be able to save his town from ruin.

My Review

Madeleine and Elliot’s journeys are wildly imaginative and fun. From the color attacks that plague the people of cello to the vivid characters of Madeleine’s friends and teachers, the story stays interesting as the conflict grows.

As Elliot explains where he lives and what it’s like, Madeleine responds with criticism for the lack of creativity in the names of the locations and the strangeness of his world. It’s kind of funny because it’s the sort of criticism a reader might give a writer, but within the story, Cello is a real place. I enjoyed that bit of paradox.

I thought I knew where the story was headed, and in part I was right. There were some elements that emerged, though, that I really didn’t see coming. They made for a great set-up leading into the sequel to the story, THE CRACKS IN THE KINGDOM, which came out in March of 2014.

Content Notes

Profanity/Crude Language
Moderate profanity used very infrequently.

Sexual Content
Brief kissing. Vague references to Elliot’s romantic history as a heartbreaker.

Spiritual Content
One of Madeleine’s friends believes in astrological signs and the other believes in reading auras. Both have some minor significance in the plot. In Cello, spells can be captured from a magical lake.

Violence
In Elliot’s world, waves of color attack people with varied levels of intensity. His uncle died from an attack by a purple the night his father disappeared. Elliot was the one who found his body (described briefly.)

Drug Content
None.

Great Summer Read: Torn by Avery Hastings

Book Review and Content, Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, Romance, Sci-Fi, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

Torn
Avery Hastings
St. Martin’s Griffin

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

A grim diagnosis sends Davis to a corrupt recovery facility called TOR-N. There she meets Mercer, a fellow patient and determined optimist. Together they craft a plan to escape the facility and expose the truth about the crumbling facility and poor patient treatment. Davis embraces Mercer’s enthusiasm, but even his charms aren’t enough to make her forget Cole.

After faking his death to spare his family from government retribution, Cole is in hiding. Only his best friend knows he’s still alive. Day by day he develops a plan to get out of the slums and earn enough money to build a life for him and Davis. Then he’ll rescue her from TOR-N and they’ll live happily ever after. That is, if he can manage to keep his identity hidden and beat the genetically enhanced Prior contestants in the Olympiads.

The story begins after Davis’s diagnosis and transfer to TOR-N and after Cole’s faked death and funeral. From page one, tensions run high. Not only are both characters already in pretty dire straits, but they’re separated, and Davis believes Cole is dead, so she’s wrestling with grief on top of everything else. Davis has been diagnosed with Narxis, a plague that’s been ravaging her people – the Priors, those genetically enhanced to excel.

Unfortunately, it’s the genetic manipulation that’s made the Priors vulnerable to disease. Cole’s friend claims to be close to a cure, but his experiments may be too costly to complete. Intriguing moral issues make this story difficult to put down. Genetic improvements make people vulnerable to a new disease (are the enhancements really enhancements then?) Potentially life-saving experiments can only be completed at a high moral cost. Is the sacrifice worth it? What if the test subjects aren’t fully informed of the risks?

The conclusion unfolds rapidly, maintaining the high tension that began on page one, but also speeding past some moments that warranted a little more time in scene. I wanted to know more about Davis’s relationship with her father and why she felt so compelled to seek her estranged mother. There were definitely scenes that included information about those things, and they were nicely tied into the story, but it definitely left me wanting more. Torn is the second book in The Feuds series. Some of the moments I crave are probably waiting for me in the first book in this series. I’ve already purchased the first book in the series and added it to my reading list so I can find out.

At the beginning of Torn, I wasn’t sure I’d like Cole’s character. He’s a bit immature and not the sharpest when it comes to relationships with others. He grows quite a bit and really earned my respect. By the end, I could definitely see what Davis saw in him. As with Davis’s story, Cole’s speeds through some final scenes. I wanted to see more of the Olympiad games. I suspect all that would have made a lot more sense to me if I’d been more familiar with the series. I definitely recommend reading the first book before starting Torn, but it’s not essential to do so. I was able to follow the story without knowing the first book, but I think I would have gotten more out of it if I’d read them in order.

Hastings has done a great job setting up this really complex story world with a lot of big moral conflicts. Fans of Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (These Broken Stars) or Scott Westerfeld (Uglies) will enjoy the moral issues over advanced technology highlighted in Torn. Readers looking for an action-packed drama with sweet romance will definitely want to add this one to their to-be-read lists.

Language Content
Extreme profanity used with moderate frequency.

Sexual Content
References to a night spent together (Davis and Cole) on top of a hospital. Kissing is mentioned, but nothing further.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Cole attacks a researcher when he discovers a mistreated patient. Cole battles other contestants in the Olympiad, a high stakes, physically competitive game.

Drug Content
Cole is offered a supplement that Priors use to enhance senses during his Olympiad trial. It’s clear that without these advantages, he doesn’t stand a chance against his opponents.

Avery Hastings is an author and former book editor from New York City. Avery grew up in Ohio, graduated in 2006 from the University of Notre Dame and earned her MFA from the New School in 2008. When she’s not reading or writing, Avery can usually be spotted lying around in the park with her affable dog. Like her protagonists, she knows how to throw a powerful right hook and once dreamed of becoming a ballerina. In addition to New York, Avery has recently lived in Mumbai and Paris, but is happy to call Brooklyn home (for now).

Review: The Elite by Kiera Cass

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

The Elite by Kiera Cass
HarperCollins

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

The pool of potential brides for Prince Maxon has been narrowed from its initial thirty-five to the final six. America Singer, one of the remaining six is under more pressure than ever to choose the man she will spend her life with: the kind-hearted future ruler, Prince Maxon or her first love, the charming castle guard Aspen.

As America vies for more time and desperately scrambles to sort her feelings for the two boys, the country faces a graver threat. Rebels continue to attack the castle, bringing death and destruction to any who oppose them. A chance encounter with rebels leaves America wondering whether they are all really evil and whether the caste system is really fair. If she were to choose Maxon, she might have an opportunity to make a real difference in her homeland, but to do so means she’d have to give up Aspen forever.

I’m not much for reality TV shows like The Bachelor, but something about this story definitely makes me want to find out whom Maxon and America choose. Because while Maxon is definitely running The Selection and narrowing down his options for a potential bride, America is definitely running her own smaller version of the game as she tries to choose between Maxon and Aspen.

Sometimes America drove me nuts. She’d fall into Aspen’s arms and realize she loves him and could never give him up, etc, smooch, smooch, and then launch into fits of jealousy at Maxon for taking the other Selection girls on dates.

While America does have a couple of lucid moments where she recognizes she isn’t being fair, she continually holds Maxon to a very different standard than the one to which she holds herself. She expects total honesty from him, but never considers telling him about her relationship with Aspen. She even allows Aspen to risk everything by continuing to see her in secret. It was hard for me to get over the deep selfishness motivating some of her choices. I’m hoping that there’s a huge reckoning coming for her in the next book where she has to own up for her behavior. Which might sound silly – I’m already planning to read the next book, but I had some real issues with this one. I can’t help it. I guess really I’m rooting for Maxon and hoping that he gets to give America a pretty sizable set-down. He’s good for it.

Beyond that, a lot of the story is written in passive voice. “I was walking down the hall,” rather than “I walked down the hall,” etc. It really keeps the reader at a distance, almost like we’re watching the story unfold through a field of mist or listening to America describe a fading dream she once had. I wanted to be right there, in the middle of the action. Not sitting back reading about it.

What I liked about the series is that it maintains a high level of romantic tension without really bringing it down into a lot of lusty sexual tension. There is some kissing, but I’d call the series pretty clean, and there aren’t a lot of teen romance novels that can make such a claim. So from that standpoint, it’s a great one to read and recommend.

I also liked that Cass brought in a little bit about the political situation in the kingdom. There’s a bit more about the whole rebel situation, definitely enough to keep us guessing and kind of raising the bar for the future queen – she’s going to walk into a big scary situation. I feel like America has the chops to face whatever the kingdom throws at her, so I’m anxious to see if she decides to agree.

Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Sexual Content
America and Aspen cultivate a secret romance, exchanging kisses and promises. No clothes are removed during these interludes, but the scenes are steamy nonetheless. America and Maxon share kisses and one another’s arms as well. At one point America leads Maxon to her bed, thinking that’s what he wishes. It’s unclear whether she means as a place to sit or that she’s offering to have sex with him. They do not have sex. America catches Maxon kissing and making out with the other girls. Since she’s made no promise to be his bride, he is keeping his options open.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Rebels infiltrate the castle, some killing or wounding guards and destroying property.

Drug Content
America is offered wine at a state event. She drinks and worries about how it affects her ability to make decisions after that.